Over the past year, I’ve become increasingly concerned about the color options available on Apple’s latest products. I’m not the only one, with this topic serving as endless inspiration for podcast discussions and blog posts. The company’s fall hardware announcements are on the horizon, so I thought now would be as good a time as any to offer my thoughts on the subject. Let’s talk about Apple and color.

When Apple Got Color Right

What frustrates me the most about the color offerings on Apple’s products is that at this time last year, it felt like the company was this close to a cohesive, intelligible, customer-friendly approach to color. We had been moving in that direction for a while.

The iPhone XR in 2018 brought fun colors back to the iPhone line for the first time since 2013’s iPhone 5c. These colors looked great, especially the coral option. The variety of colors, combined with the fact that it was the first somewhat affordable iPhone with the iPhone X-style design, made the iPhone XR a hit and set the stage for a big move the following year.
In 2019, the XR was replaced by the iPhone 11, which came in new fun color options. Between the XR and the 11, the iPhone was offered in every color of the rainbow, which meant customers could own an iPhone in their favorite color no matter what that color was.
The 2020 iPad Air not only featured a complete redesign, but the option to purchase an iPad in blue, pink, or even green.
At the same event as the iPad Air, the company introduced the Apple Watch Series 6, which came in colors for the first time. The product was available in blue and red in addition to the expected silver, black, and gold finishes.
The iPhone 12 continued the trend of offering new color choices to those who upgraded, this time with a twist: A new option, purple, was introduced in the spring. This mid-cycle addition was repeated with the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro, adding another element of fun and surprise to Apple’s color story.
At the end of 2020, the AirPods Max were released in the same colors as the iPad Air. Colorful headphones from Apple? It seemed impossible, but it was true!
Of course, the epitome of this story came with the release of the M1 iMac in spring of 2021. This product came in every color of the rainbow (matching Apple’s classic six-color rainbow logo), and the aluminum finishes really popped. Each option came with a matching keyboard, mouse or trackpad, and even Lightning cable. The colors were bold and downright delightful.

Of course, during this time, the Pro product lines continued to come in fewer and more reserved finishes. Silver and black pervaded, with the occasional addition of a dark, muted color option in the iPhone Pro lines. And lower-end products were only offered in limited finishes to keep prices down. But, for the products that most people bought most of the time, there were at least a few true color options beyond the typical neutral tones. And the color options looked like they were growing.

Based on Apple’s product offerings over these years, there seemed to be a cohesive strategy emerging when it came to which products came in which colors. One’s color choices would depend on whether the product in question was a budget, consumer, or professional device.

There’s a bit of generalizing here, but this is the pattern that emerged beginning with the introduction of the iPhone XR and continuing into the early days of Apple Silicon Macs. Rumors for impending updates to the MacBook Air and Mac Mini lines suggested that this pattern would continue.

Clearly, those rumors were mistaken.

Off the Rails

At last year’s September event, something happened with Apple’s color options that I’m still trying to wrap my head around. The company boasted about two new beautiful finishes: starlight and midnight. Starlight is a champagne sort of color, like a mix between silver and gold but without any glimmer. Midnight is a very dark blue color that looks almost matte black under certain light, but never quite black.

Apple seemed very proud of these colors—so much so that the company rebuilt their color offerings around them. Starlight replaced the silver finish on the iPhone 13, aluminum Apple Watch Series 7, and iPad mini. And midnight replaced black (also known as space grey in Apple land) on the iPhone and aluminum Apple Watch as well. To make matter worse, the iPhone 13 and aluminum Apple Watch Series 7 came in fewer color options than before.

This put customers looking to buy Apple’s consumer-grade products in a tough position: Their color choices were limited, and the neutral options they’d grown used to were nowhere to be found. They’d been replaced by these new colors that looked kind of like the old colors, but not enough to blend in the way silver and space grey could. Those who didn’t like the limited color options available were forced to choose between these two new, foreign finishes that looked like they were from a slightly altered version of our world.

Silver and black suddenly were limited to professional, high-end products like the iPhone 13 Pro and the stainless steel Apple Watch—except for the odd exceptions like the space grey iPad mini and the base model iPad, which still comes in silver and space grey. This one event turned Apple’s mostly cohesive color story into a mess.

Personally, I was deflated. I was planning to upgrade my Apple Watch Series 4 to a Series 7, but I hated every aluminum finish available, and I didn’t want to pay more for stainless steel just to get a neutral color option. (Full honesty: I did eventually cave and buy a stainless steel Apple Watch in black, which Apple calls graphite.) Why were the colors I liked suddenly unavailable to me?

It’s not that I have a particular problem with starlight or midnight. They aren’t for me, but I’m sure a lot of people think they’re great. I just don’t understand why they abruptly became the standard finishes at the exact moment the color options became more limited. That one-two punch didn’t feel great to me.

As time went on, the color story didn’t get much better. Last year’s Apple Silicon MacBook Pro came in the expected finishes: silver and space grey. But the recently-released M2 MacBook Air, which was anticipated to come in a variety of colors, instead offered four non-colorful finishes: silver, space grey, starlight, and midnight.

It’s odd to see all four of these neutral/neutral-ish choices in one product line; I would have expected either starlight/midnight or silver/space grey plus at least one colorful option. Alas, that was not the case. If Apple’s color strategy has any sort of rhyme or reason at this point, I can’t see it. And it makes me sad.

What Happened?

All of this leads me to wonder why Apple chose to go in this new color direction. Of course, we’re never going to get a direct answer to that sort of question from the company itself. That’s not how they roll. But a few different explanations have been floated in the community over the past year.

First of all, it’s possible that Apple is changing up the color story just to do something different. Repetition and predictability aren’t good for business. And with something as ever-changing as color preferences on a global scale, the company can’t afford to sit still.

It also could be that supply chain issues caused by the pandemic have forced Apple to scale back on their color options. It’s easier and cheaper to only produce a few different finishes, so when things get tricky and something has to be sacrificed, color options get thrown out.

Or Apple are so proud of these new finishes they’ve crafted that they’re sure everyone else will love them, and thus they’ve become the new default. Silver and black have been Apple’s go-to colors for so long; the decision to replace them with starlight and midnight could not have been made lightly. But if the company believed in those colors enough, they may have decided it was worth it.

I’m not sure that any of these explanations tells the whole story, and none of them make me feel better about the current choices on offer. But I also know that these decisions are taken seriously, so they can’t have come out of the blue.

Looking Ahead

That’s where we’ve been. Where do we go from here?

I think that starlight and midnight are here to stay. Apple clearly loves them, and I’m sure many customers do, too. I can accept that. I’d just like to see a truly neutral option added back into the consumer products. Can we at least have silver back, if not also space grey? The fact that the new MacBook Air is offered in all four finishes might mean that silver and space grey are coming back to more products.

All of those neutral/neutral-ish tones aside, people love fun colors, and I’d like to see Apple take the iMac approach with more products. Is it a lot of work to keep all of those options in stock and sorted out? I’m sure it is. But people love them, and it honestly could lead to some earlier upgrades. If a consumer isn’t totally thrilled about the finish they chose out of the limited iPhone 13 lineup, they might be tempted to get an iPhone 14 in their favorite color. (Personally, I’m rooting for a purple iPhone 14 Pro.)

Consistency in Apple’s color offerings may be too much to ask in the long-term. Fashion is a fickle thing, and people’s feelings about colors shift over time. So while I’d like to see my fancy chart become the reality, I understand that it’s not a likely scenario. But if we can at least get back to a point where we’re given a true neutral option in addition to at least a few fun, delightful color options, I think we’ll be okay.

Apple’s color story went off-script last year, but I hope it’s coming back around to an approach that makes a little more sense. Will the company’s color strategy in 2022 be more well-received than last year? We’ll find out soon at their September 7 event. I’ve got my fingers crossed for some good news and a bright, colorful future ahead.